June 27, 2025, to May 29, 2026
The exhibition is co-curated by Dr. Jimil Ataman and Dr. Anne Bissonnette.
Hats!
Function & Femininity
Practical and whimsical, women’s hats can convey one’s taste, social position, and political sentiments. Head coverings are thought to be the first pieces of apparel worn by humans going back over 5,000 years.[1] They can protect the head from the elements, the face from the sun, and shield the ears from the cold. Yet they can also suggest a wearer’s sense of identity and help situate them in a specific time and place. The fashionable hat is especially intriguing because of how it has come to signify femininity. From flower-covered caps of the 19th and 20th centuries, to the 2017 pink “pussy hats,” this ubiquitous accessory is one of fashion’s most expressive object.
This exhibition in three parts brings together eleven hats to explore how one unique and enduring object has influenced the construction and presentation of femininity. Hats help their wearers conform to and elude dominant expectations of gender identity. Utilitarian, sunbonnets also conveyed a demure sensibility. Covered in pink à la Jackie Kennedy, the “pillbox” fuses femininity and modernity. Nonetheless, Clair Hughes posits that “the choice of a hat is a struggle between conformity and the assertion of personal identity.”[2] From virtue signaling to rebellion, we offer a window into the evolving relationship between femininity, form and function.[3]
Jimil Ataman, PhD
Anne Bissonnette, PhD
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[1] Niall J. O’Sullivan, Matthew D. Teasdale, Valeria Mattiangeli, Frank Maixner, Ron Pinhasi, Daniel G. Bradley, and Albert Zink, “A whole mitochondria analysis of the Tyrolean Iceman’s leather provides insights into the animal sources of Copper Age clothing,” Scientific reports 6, no. 1 (2016): 31279.
[2] Clair Hughes, Hats (London, England: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2017), 1046.
Image caption: Drawing by M. M. Baratin in Eugène Marsan, “Pour distraire votre amie sous son bonnet marin bicolore,” Gazette du Bon Ton, 1920, no. 6, 172. [3]